Pet World of Natick, Mass., is a small fish in a big aquari- um of huge pet store chains.
In fact, this single-shop, family-owned pet store has to compete
with one pet store from a national chain on the other side of its
parking lot. Yet today, the store
is thriving, with a bigger, more
geographically widespread customer base than ever before.

How are they doing it?

Doug Alton, Pet World’s owner, attributes much of his store’s
recent success to the store’s
new website (petworldnatick
.com), designed and developed
by Champ Internet Solutions of
Newton, Mass.

“We were a store very muchin need of an improved Inter-net presence,” Alton said. “Thenew website accomplishes thisand then some. Previously, ourcustomer outreach was limitedto the Natick area, but this newsite gives us a stronger presencethroughout New England. Withbranded product information, aphoto gallery, a live-action KittyCity Cat Cam and the ability forour customers to reach out to usmore easily, visitors are spend-ing more time on our site. Theseincreased virtual visits are trans-lating to many more real visits toour physical location.”

A PRESENCE OUT OFTHE DOGHOUSE

Alton views Pet World’s oldsite as a bad introduction to theworld of Internet marketing—one created in-house in the late’90s with the bare minimum offunctionality. Featuring a pictureof the store, business hours andnot much more, it was, accord-ing to Alton, a “glorified phonebook ad.”“We realized that in order fora website to be effective, we ei-ther needed to have a full-time,in-house expert running the siteor an outside vendor creating andmanaging the site,” Alton said.

Pet World decided to takethe latter route after being in-troduced to Champ InternetSolutions by a woman who washelping the store with some mar-keting and promoting animalrescue group events.

“You want your web page to
be a reflection of who you are
and what sets you apart,” Alton
said. “I appreciated how Champ
and its president took a real interest in Pet World’s business,
learning as much as they could
about what sets our pet store
apart from the large chains and
the pet store industry in general.

“It was only after they knewour business almost as well aswe did that they set to creatingour website,” Alton continued.“The new site showcases all theunique benefits of shopping withus, including our unmatched in-dustry knowledge, our newestproducts and the immersive petexperience that our customershave come to expect from PetWorld over the years.”The new site also makes iteasier for customers to find ex-actly what they are looking for,with a depth you might expectfrom a large chain’s website, Al-ton added.

The challenge with Pet World
was developing a website that created clear calls to action to bring
customers through the door, as
Pet World does not sell its products online. Since the new site
launched, visitors are spending 37
percent more time on the site and
viewing, on average, 10 percent
more pages with each visit. Customers are visiting Pet World with
clear purchasing intent.

VIRTUAL VISITS TO KITTY CITY
Another new feature of the website is the live Kitty City Cat
Cam, which allows visitors to
view adoptable cats—and their
antics—in the store-based shelter during the hours of 11 a.m.
to 9 p.m. Pet World donates the
cat shelter space to Stray Pets in
Need of Massachusetts.

“Over 8,000 cats have been
adopted through the shelter,”
Alton said. “We sincerely enjoy
giving back to the community in
this way. Our vendors also are
excited and involved with Kitty
City Cat Cam sponsorships.”

In fact, Alton plans to expand
Kitty City, letting users activate
a toy within the shelter. He also
plans to offer increased product
placement opportunities to Pet
World vendors, giving them a
chance to showcase a new toy or
cat food.

NOT A STATIC SOLUTION

One aspect of the new website that
Alton greatly appreciates is the
site’s building-block nature.

“The new site is easy for usto customize,” he said. “It givesus the ability to make immediatechanges without having to callChamp for assistance. They’vemade it very easy for us to popin information and functionalityourselves. It’s so important in theretail space to be able to keep ourcustomers up-to-date with thevery latest product specials, andeven product recalls.”To achieve the end goal ofkeeping the lines of communi-cation between the store and itscustomers always open, Champalso helped Pet World set up anew Facebook page, which em-ployees are populating with in-formative posts, event informa-tion and photos, and coupons.

“The new Facebook page is a
great customer feedback loop,”
Alton said.

Pet World also has built a
customer database, maintained
by Champ, which the store
uses to send out monthly email
newsletters, created and distributed by Champ.

“These email newsletters are
certainly a much better value for
us than the traditional mailings
we used to do,” Alton said. “They
are less expensive to produce,
and we feel that they are getting
a higher level of readership. Since
beginning this new email initiative, we’ve increased our newsletter subscriber base from about
500 to more than 3,000.

“We feel that we truly are realizing our potential with this
new website,” Alton continued.
“Features like the Kitty City Cat
Cam and the clickable picture
gallery are a lot of fun, for us
and for our customers. And
they are contributing to a website that is helping Pet World
stand out in a world of national
chain stores.”

Seth Worby is CEO of Champ
Internet Solutions in Newton,
Mass. For more information, visit
champinternet.com.

Bring It to the CompetitionOne independent retailer shares why using a professionalto deliver a next-level website is the way to go.

The presidential election and major technological changes are likely to affect small
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